Patsayev(2001)

Patsayev

The Patsayev is a spacecraft from the World of 2001. It is a soviet tanker and cargo transport. There are two versions: normal for a work on Earth's orbit, and Patsayev-M which is Mars cargo transport.

History

Previously, before the Tchalinko base was able to process lunar ice into fuel, there was no refueling capability on the moon. The Patsayev tankers were used to shuttle fuel to the lunar surface and return empty. With fuel now available at Tchalinko, the Patsayevs are undergoing conversion into Komarovs, or are performing the Taurus mission of boosting payloads to high or escape orbit. Since the Patsayev has the fuel capacity of a Komarov transport but not the mass of the habitats, it is capable of far more delta-V than the Taurus to which it is sometimes compared.

Names in service: Patsayev

Patsayev-M

The Patsayev-M is a Mars cargo vessel, which simply adds the Mars aerobrake section and a “luggage rack” to carry up to a dozen cargo containers externally. The Patsayev-M is the functional equivalent of the U.S. Herculis. It is quite different in operation, however, as it aerobrakes into Mars orbit. Normal procedure then is to land on Phobos or be unloaded in orbit. The Patsayev-M could probably land on Mars in theory, but never does in practice.

Names in service: Dobrovolsky

Advanced Maneuvers

Splitting the eject burn into two or more burns

For a tutorial how to do this using IMFD and BurnTimeCalcMFD, see Splitting an eject burn using IMFD and BTC.

As the Patsayev class is a bit weak on acceleration, a single eject burn can often take painfully long. To avoid the problem, its common practice to split the eject burn into two smaller burns.

1. The first burn only places the craft into a high elliptic orbit. This burn should take place roughly where the final eject burn will be. A good dV for this burn when leaving earth from Station V is 2500 m/s, which places the Patsayev into a nice 10 hour orbit.

1. The second burn is the final eject burn, using the speed gained in the first burn perfectly by being at the same location as the first burn. The errors between both burns are only adding minimal to the fuel consumption.

See also

• Viktor Patsayev
• Georgy Dobrovolsky
• World of 2001 homepage